8 



terrestrial growth veiy dark clean green colour, open venation, papery texture, and fronds usually equally 

 tapering to both ends but occasionally more or less abniptly reduced to the shallow broadly rounded basal 

 lobes which pass into the paced glands that descend to the bottom of the rachis, and by the long more 

 than usually distant, ])liant, very narrowly linear fertile pinnae. The species is based on Plumier's tab. 90. but 

 represents a plant not reduced but broadest at the base, with more numerous,|narrower and more rigid pinnaj 

 than ours, much like an enlarged altenuata. Hooker too, in his 8p. Fil. describes a plant not reduced at the 

 base ; so that there seems to exist much confusion regarding the species. 



6. L. procera, Spreng-Root —stock stout, short, decumbent or oblique, scaly; stipites clustered, strong 

 spreading or pendent, f-1^ ft. 1. thickly paleaceous, often asperous at the base ; fronds pinnate, oblong 

 or ovate-lanceolate, stiffly coriaceous, dull green, palcjceous on the rachis, costae and ribs beneath, 1-3 ft. 1. 



ft. w. ; pinnae contiguous or apart 2-6 in. 1. in. w., with a similar terminal one, acute or acuminate 

 the base auricled or cordate, the lower not or little reduced ; margin thin, reflexed, even or crenate ; veins 

 fine and very close ; fertile fronds similar in shape and vestiture, but with longer stipites, the narrow 

 pinnae roun ded and free at the base ; involucres revolute, coriaceous, dark, much broken at maturity. — Hook. 

 Icon. Fil. t. 127 and 128 ; Gard. Ferns t. 23. 



Most alnmdant on wayside banks and open hillsides from about 2,000 ft. alt. upwards, delighting in 

 exposure to the sun and congregated in extensive communites, especially between 4,000-6,000 ft. alt. 

 Variable, particularly in size, the pinnae in different plants ranging from an inch to a foot-and-a-half long, 

 but easily in every case recognised by its dense paleaceous vestiture. There is a frond in 81oane's Herb, 

 mounted on the sheet with Aspidium semicordatum for which it was mistaken, gathered on the sides of 

 Mount Diabolo, probably the first collected for the purpose. 



7. L. Boryana Willd. — Caudex subarboreous, erect, 2-3 ft. high, very stout, densely covered with 

 long dark subulate scales; stij^ites strong, caespitose, erect — spreading |-1 ft. 1. more or less, scaly and with 

 a tuft like those of the caudex at the base ; fronds oblong or ovate-lanceolate, pinnate, bright green, naked 

 except a slight deciduous vestiture along the ribs, coriaceous ; rachis strong, channelled freely fibriUose, 

 pale brown green beneath ; pinnae close on the lower subdistant, 4-7 in. 1., an inch or less w. free and 

 rounded at the base, upper ones gradually becoming more and more adnate and abruptly passing into the 

 similar tenninal one, the reduced lower ones suddenly passing into mere alternate gland-like scars on the 

 face of the stipites which reach to the bottom, margin even or subcrenulate in the outer part, veins close, 

 spreading, forked or simple, the clavate apices glandidose on the upper side, ; fertile fronds the same shape 

 but broader, and with longer stipes, the linear pinnae distant 8-9 in. 1. ; involucres revolute, much lacerated 

 at maturity. — L. magcllanica, Desv — Hook — Gard. Ferns, t. 52. 



L. Schomhurglm, Klotzsch, L. Ryani, Klf. 



Infrequent, a plant here and there, never abundant, in forest at 5,000-6,000 ft. alt. A fine species with 

 the fronds spreading from the top of the caudex, which is stout at the base, and tapers to the top, and is 

 densel}" covered with the long, dark, subulate vestiture. It has a very wide range — Southward to the 

 Straits of Magellan, South Africa, and the Mascarene Islands. 



